White Dade

The City may have changed, but trust me, everything else is the same.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Someone Else is Going to Have to Turn Out The Lights

Yep, this is it. The End. Fine. Terminado. Fintio. Whatever you wanna call it, this is the last new post I’m putting up here for a long time. Does this mean I’m never going to grace this site with my perils of wisdom again? Of course it doesn’t. Being someone who is never at a loss for words I can almost promise you I will have something to opine upon after the tearful, heartfelt goodbye I give you now. But it may not be for a week, a month, a few months, whatever. But, as I’ve said before, I’ve ridden this blog for all its worth, and now it’s time to say goodbye.

People, most of them alleged “friends,” of mine have made fun of me for continuing on with the blog. But I can safely say that along with the six years I spent in the Marine Corps and that bartending course I took last summer it is one of the most worthwhile things I have ever done. Writing this blog, and getting the reaction I have gotten, has showed me that its not just my mom and some coworkers who think I write pretty well, at one point 1200 people a day were agreeing. It gave me direction in a time when I had figured out that what I thought I wanted to do with my life wasn’t what I wanted to do, and that, friends, is perhaps the greatest thing that has come out of the 300-plus virtual pages contained here at White Dade.

It’s funny, my friend Larry used to devote a lot of virtual ink to making fun of people who started blogs, hoping to someday be “discovered” and get a paid writing job, admitted to top journalism schools, get laid by hot girls, meet minor celebrities, get drinks bought for you, and maybe even catch the eye of some mainstream organization that wants the rights to your stuff. That, of course, seems like a pipe dream when you start your blogger account. But I guess to a lucky few it actually does happen.

So while it would be a vast misstatement at this point to say this blog has made me famous, it has at least shown me that if you are truly good at something people will notice. I have made countless friends and met all kinds of interesting people thanks to this venture. I now have places to stay in cities I had never before visited. And that, too, has been a really cool thing.

And as much as I’d love to say this is all thanks to me and my glorious abilities, there are a lot of people who I would like to thank for their various contributions, support, or, you know, other things I probably shouldn’t mention. But without them this whole experience would definitely not have been what it was. So (in no particular order) to IJC Matt, Alice, Larry, Patrice, Tara, Nicole, Jason, Jessica, Ate, Roosh, David in DC, Allison, Gen, Gus, Mikhail, Maria, Rick and Alex from Stuck on The Palmetto, Graig, Cliff, Seuc, Matt Ufford, Amber, Margaryta, Trevor, Jenn, Leo and the whole Sterger family, Heather, Shannon, Gabriel Morency, Alex Cabrera, Maggie, Mo, Ali, Johnson, Angela, Erik, Jonathan, and anyone else I forgot, well, Eat a Dick. My memory isn’t THAT good. And, yes, there are others out there I have to thank for a lot of things, but most of them are not blog-related.

My aim in writing this was to inform and entertain. I hope those of you who read this and aren’t from Miami now understand that being white in this city is as close to being a true minority as you can get in this country. It’s not like LA, so stop comparing it. Some of you think I’m racist, and some of you think I am a sad, sad attention whore. And to some degree, I’m sure you are right. But what I have done here has been extremely worthwhile and I have no regrets about it, despite anyone who may have been offended.

By now, most of you know my name and what I look like (no, that is NOT me in the picture). If you ever had a doubt feel free to check out my other stuff at Miamibeach411.com. I miss the days of anonymity, but giving it up has allowed me to move on to a lot of other things.

So, I guess this is my teary-eyed goodbye, everyone. Thanks for a great year-and-a-half or so, and check back in sometime. I spent three days in Gainesville last week and I can safely say there is no shortage of material when you are the oldest guy in town at 27.